Welcome to Litsy!

Sama moves to Boston ahead of Hadi where she is working on her dissertation on birds at Harvard University. When Hadi's father dies, he travels back to Syria for the funeral. At this time, Sama is pregnant, and they are expecting their first child, a boy. What was supposed to be a relatively quick trip turns into an unexpected situation having Hadi deported back to Syria when he tries to return home to Sama and his son. Emotional, family themed.

This book is beautiful, sad, and anger inducing. I loved the audio presentation. The only thing I didn‘t really get was the bird migration parallel and why Sama would study that as part of anthropology. I‘m not the best interpreter of poetry.. and I saw the metaphor…. But anthro is the study of human culture. At least it was when I studied it in undergrad. Even so, my heart was wrenched with this story.

#MMD book club flight pick for October 2022

Hadi and Sama are a Syrian couple deeply in love and living in Boston. She had come to Boston years before chasing dreams of a bigger life; he‘d landed there as a sponsored refugee from a bloody civil war. In 2016, they are tragically separated when Hadi returns to Turkey for his father‘s funeral and is then denied entry back in the U.S. This little book will tug at your heartstrings in a big way.

📖 5-2-22 || Heartbreaking | Page-turner | Tense
A heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful story of a young Syrian couple separated by the US travel ban. Pass the Kleenex box…

Here's my March #bookspinbingo card, all cleared. @thearomaofbooks

Lots of DNFs this month, but I have read a few others not on this board that I really liked! I may start some of my April list early.

#booked2022 #TBRDeckofCards #roll100 #AuthorAMonth #LiteraryCrew

Sama and Hadi are a young couple just starting out in life, full of love and hope with a new baby on the way too this should be an exciting time.
But towards the end of the end of Sama's pregnancy Hadi has to travel to Jordan to arrange a funeral for his father.
Little does he know a law enacted while he is away denies him access both to his new adopted country and also his wife and child.
This is the heartbreaking story of lives torn apart.

I was immediately drawn into this story. A powerful story that is sure to linger in your mind. A story of love, family, and determining what “home” means and where it is.

On January 27, 2017, Executive Order 13769 was issued, suspending Syrian refugees‘ admission into the US indefinitely. You probably heard about and went on with your life as usual, as it did not impact you. But how about those it did impact? What did it mean to them?

This is a beautifully written novel about finding love and keeping it against the odds. But it also shows the reader how the refugee and immigrant experience is fraught with both achievements and losses and that in order to move forward they also leave so much behind.

I highly recommend this beautiful modern love story.
4 stars

This book is heavy — about a couple who are separated during the 2017 executive order preventing citizens from many Muslim countries to enter the United States of America. Hadi went to bury his father & went to return to the states & was refused entrance. Sami, pregnant with their child she goes to the airport & ends up in premature labor during the protests at the airport for the people being retained. This is Hadi and Sami‘s story. A must read.